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POEMS 



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SUNSHINE AND FIRELIGHT. 



JOHN JAMES PIATT. 



/ 



CINCINNATI: 
R. W. CARROLL & CO., 

71) W E S T F O I' R T H S T R E E T , 



OPKRA-HOUSE BUILDING. 
I 8 6 (3 . 



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Gc^u ; 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the 5'ear 1863, by 

JOHN J. PIATT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District (3ourt of +he United States, for tho 

Southern District of Ohio. 



To E. C. S. 



i dedicate this book, dear friend, to you— 

Knowing your other friends, a host unspoken, 

Will say: "To one so bright, so warm, so true. 

Our hearts should bear how many a worthier token! 

J. J. P. 

Washington, D. C, December, 1865. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Dedication 3 

The Pioueer's Chimney 'J 

Reading the Milestone 20 

The Mower in Ohio 21 

The Sunshine of Shadows 26 

Higher Tenants 28 

Passengers 31 

Sundown 33 

The Old Man and the Spring-Leaves 35 

Fires in Illinois 38 

King's Tavern 41 

One of Two 44 

At Evening 45 

A Lost Graveyard 47 

The Sight of Angels 49 

Taking the Night-Train 50 

To the Lares '. 52 

Outgoing 53 

To a Child 56 

In October 57 

White Frost 58 

Resurrection 59 

Foresight of Fate 62 

To my Brother Guy 63 

To One in a Darkened House 66 

The Blue-Bird's Burial 67 

Sleep 71 

Firelight Abroad 72 

The Buried Ring 75 

The White Lily '. 77 

Twofold 78 

Anniversary 79 

Awake in Darkness 80 

For a Gravestone 81 



CONTENTS. 



FOOTSTEPS KETURNING. 

PAGE 

Riding the Horse to Market 85 

"To " 90 

After a While 92 

Genius Loci 94 

Melancholy 95 

The Week 97 

Folded Down 98 

Mirage 101 

An Echo 102 

September 103 

Fallen Leaves 104 

Travelers 106 

The Love-Letter 107 

Confidants 108 

The Birds of Longing 109 



FIVE TEAES. 

Honors of War 113 

The Ballad of a Rose 115 

The Open Slave-Pen 119 

Riding to Vote 122 

The Unbended Bow 126 



SUNSHIIS^E A^B FIRELIGHT. 



THE PIONEER'S CHIMNEY. 

• We leave the highway here a little si3aee — 
(So much of life is near so much of death : ) 
The chimney of a dwelling still is seen, 
A little mound of ruin, overgrown 
With lithe, long grasses and domestic weeds, 
Among the apple-trees (the ancestors 
Of yonder orchard fruited from their boughs) — 
The apple-trees that, when the place was rough 
With the wild forests, and the land was new, 
He planted: one, departed long ago, 
But still a presence unforgotten here, 
Who bless'd me in my boyhood, with his hands 
That seem'd like one's anointed. Gentle, strong 
And warm'd with sunny goodness, warming all. 
Was he, familiar by the reverend name 
Of Uncle Grardner in our neighborhood : 
His love had grown to common property 
By ties that Nature draws from man to man, 
And so at last had claim'd the bond of blood. 
9 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

He was an elder in the land, and held 
His first proprietary right, it seem'd, 
From Nature's self; for, in an earlier day, 
He came with others, who of old had reach'd 
Their neighbor hands across New England farms, 
Over the mountains 'to this Western Land — 
A journey long and slow and perilous, 
With many hardships and the homesick look 
Of wife and children backward ; chose his farm, 
Builded his house, and clear'd, by hard degrees, 
Acres that years ago were meadows broad, 
Or wheat-fields rocking in the summer heat. 

His children grew, and son and daughter pass'd 
Into the world that grew around, and some 
Into that world which evermore unseen 
Is still about us, and the graveyard where 
Their bodies slept (a few half sinking stones, 
A stranger's eyes would hardly see them, show 
Seventy rods yonder in the higher ground) 
Gave still a tenderer title, year by year, 
To the dear places earn'd by earlier toil. 

Meanwhile the years that made these woody vales 
An eager commonwealth of crowding men 
10 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

Pass'd, one by one, and every thing was changed; 
And he, whose limbs were like the hickory's when 
He came with life's wrought vigor here, was changed : 
He heard the voice that tells men they are old. 
Yet not the less he moved his usual rounds, 
Walk'd his old paths; not idle, sweated still 
With scythe or sickle in the hay or wheat; 
Follow'd his plow when in the April sun 
The blackbird chatter'd after and the crow 
Far-off look'd anxious for the new-dropp'd corn; 
And gave the winter hours their services, 
With sheep abroad on slopes that, slanting south, 
Breathe off the snow and show a warming green, 
With cattle penn'd at home or bounding flail: 
So, not forgetting social offices 
Throughout all seasons, (gaining so the love 
That went acknowledged in his common name,) 
He, like the Servant in the Parable, 
Doing his duty, waited for his Lord. 

The chimney shows enough for memory, 
And, it may be, a stranger passing close. 
If thoughtful, well might think a tender thought 
Of vanish'd fireside faces, in his dream 
Suddenly lighted by a vanish'd fire. 
11 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

And should the apple-trees that Huger, loth 
To end their blossoming, attract his eye, 
Their fragrance would not pass unrecognized 
For deeper gifts than fragrance. He is gone 
Who planted them, and thirty years are gone. 
Now, if you look a quarter-mile away, 
Beyond the toll-gate and its lifted sweep, 
You see a prouder house — not new nor old — 
Beneath whose later roof no spirit dwells 
That had its tenure here: a stranger holds 
The secondary ownership of law. 

It is a story, common though it seem. 
Tender and having pathos for the heart 
Which knows, but will not know, that he who 

says 
"My own," and looks to-day on willing fields, 
And sets his family tree in trusted ground. 
To-morrow hears another answer "Mine." 
Listen," if you will listen. It is hard 
To go an alien from fiimiliar doors 
When we are young, to wrestle where we go, 
And win or lose exulting — we are strong; 
But it is pitiful when weak and old, 
When only for the near in life we seek, 
12 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

And lieaven, yearn'd after, is not thouglit of far, 
To lose our shelter and to want for rest. 

Of Uncle Gardner's children three were dead — 
Yonder they lie. Their mother and two with him 
(Two youngest: one a boy of fourteen years, 
His latest child — a girl three years Ibeyond) 
Breathed in his close, contented atmosphere; 
An elder daughter, wedded years before, 
Lived far away in watery Michigan; 
His eldest son — and the first-born of all — 
Thrived as a merchant in the city near. 
Had thriven, at least, or so 'twas said, and he 
For some keen chance had got the old man's will 
To be his bond. The father pledged the land — 
Willing for the grown man, yet for the boy 
And for his girl at home regretfully. 
Deeming the chance a rash one. From that day 
He wrought his daily labors ill-content. 
And with a trouble in his countenance. 
That would not put a false face on his heart. 
To things familiar came a subtle change. 
The brook that long ago, companion-like, 
Had grown acquainted with his solitude. 
And, later, made him music when he walk'd 
13 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

And led liis children through the pasture-ground 
Up to the haying or the harvest-gap, 
A noisy mimic of their prattled words, 
Now seem'd to lift a stranger's face at him, 
Wondering why he came there, who he was. 
Or murmur' d, with a long and low lament. 
Some undercurrent of an exile's song 
That is not on his lips but in his heart. 
Nothing was as it had been: something vague, 
That Present of the Future which is born 
Within the bosom, whispering what will be. 
Met him and follow'd him, and would not cease 
To meet and follow him: it seem'd to say 
" The place that knew you shall know you no more." 
And oftentimes he saw the highway stirr'd 
With slowly-journeying dust, and, passing slow, 
The many who forever in our land 
Were going farther, driven by goads unseen. 
Or not content and looking for the new; 
And then he thought of how in those dear days 
He, too, had ventured, and again he saw 
With steadfast eyes forgotten faces, known 
When he was young, and others dear to him 
From whom he parted with regret but firm 
In the strong purposes which build the world; 
14 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

Thought of his consolation — she most dear 
Was with him, they most helpless with him, too, 
For whom he sought a newer world of hope : 
"But I am old," he murmur'd, "she is old," 
And saw his hand was shaken like his thought. 

Such were his troubled fancies. When he slept, 
In his slow dreams — with lagging team, the last 
Of many that in yonder meadows foal'd 
Grew and became a portion of the place — 
Journeying far away, and never more 
Reaching his journey's goal, (a weary road 
Whose end came only with the waking day.) 
He seem'd to pass, and always 'twas the same: 
Through new-built villages of joyous homes, 
Homes not for him, by openings recent-made, 
But not for him, by cultivated farms 
Of other men — and always 'twas the same. 
Then, when he woke and found the dream a dream. 
And through his window shone the sun and brought 
The faint rich smell of the new-tassel'd corn, 
More fragrant from the dew that weigh'd it down. 
He murmur'd of his fields — " For other men ; 
They are not mine. The mortgage will be closed; 
The mortgage goes wherever I shall go." 
15 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

So pass'd the quarter of a year, and so 
The old man, burden 'd with his little world, ■ 
Felt it upon his shoulders, stooping down, 
Bent more with this than every other year. 
And summer pass'd to autumn: in his door 
He sat and saw the leaves, his friends of old, 
Audible in the sunshine, falling, falling, 
With a continuous rustle — music fit 
For his accompanying thought. At last it came, 
The blow that reach'd his heart before it came, 
For all was lost: the son whose risk he placed 
Both on his children's home and on his heart 
Was ruin'd, as the careless worldlings say — 
Buin'd indeed, it seem'd, for on his brain 
The quick stroke flash'd: for many years the son 
Breathed in a world in which he did not live. 

The old man took the blow but did not fall— 
Its weight had been before. The land was sold. 
The mortgage closed. That winter, cold and long. 
(Permitted by the hand that grasp'd his all 
That winter pass'd he here,) beside his fire, 
He talk'd of moving in the spring, he talk'd 
(While the shrill sap cried in a troubled blaze) 
Like one whose life was not all broken down, 
16 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

Cheerfully garrulous, with words that show 
False witnesses of hope and seeming strength 
When these are gone and come not. In the spring, 
When the first warmth had brooded every-where, 
He sat beside his doorway in that warmth, 
Watching the wagons on the highway pass, 
With something of the memory of his dread 
In the last autumn ; and he fell asleep. 
Perhaps within his sleep he seem'd again 
Journeying far away for evermore, 
Leaving behind the homes of other men. 
Seeking a newer home for those he loved, 
A pioneer again. And so he slept — 

And still he sleeps : his grave is one of those. 

His wife soon joined his sleep beside him there. 

Their children Time has taken and the world. 

The chimney shows enough for memory, 
The graves remain; all other trace is gone. 
Except the apple-trees that linger, loth 
To end their blossoming. In restless moods 
I used to wander hither oftentimes, 
2 17 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

And often linger'd till the twilight came, 
Toucli'd with the melancholy breathed by change; 
And something in the atmosphere, I thought, 
Remain'd of hours and faces that had been. 
Then, thinking of the Past and all I knew 
And all remember'd of it — most of him 
Whose vanish'd fireside blazed so near me here — 
My fancy, half unconscious, shaped the things 
Which had been, and among the quiet trees 
The chimney from its burial mound arose; 
The ruin'd farm-house grew a quiet ghost — 
Its walls were thrill'd with murmur-music, humm'd 
By inner voices scarcely heard without; 
And from the window breathed a vaporous light 
Into the outer mist of vernal dark, 
And lo ! a crowd of sparks against the sky 
Sprang suddenly, at times, and from the wood 
(The wood? — no wood was here for forty years!) 
Bark'd the shrill fox and all the stars hung bright. 
Till, busy with the silence far away, 
(And whether heard or heard not hardly known,) 
First indistinct, then louder, nearer still. 
And ever louder, grew a tremulous roar; 
Then, sudden, flared a torch from out the night, 
And, eastward half-a-mile, the shimmering train 
18 



THE PIONEERS CHIMNEY. 

Hurried across the darkness and the dreain, 
And all my fantasy was gone, at once — 
The lighted window and the fireside sound: 
I saw the heap of ruin underfoot, 
And overhead the leaves were jarr'd awake, 
Whispering a moment of the flying fright. 
And far away the whistle, like a cry. 
Shrill in the darkness reach'd the waiting town. 
19 



READING THE MILESTONE. 

I stopp'd to read the Milestone here, 
A laggard school-boy, long ago; 

I came not far — my home was near — 
But ah, how far I long'd to go! 

Behold a number and a name, 

A finger, Westward, cut in stone : 

The vision of a city came. 

Across the dust and distance shown. 

Around me lay the farms asleep 

In hazes of autumnal air. 
And sounds that quiet loves to keep 

Were heard, and heard not, every -where. 

I read the Milestone, day by day: 
I yearn 'd to cross the ban-en bound, 

To know the golden Far-away, 

To walk the new Enchanted Ground! 
20 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

JUNE, MDCCCLXIV. 

The bees in the clover are making honey, and I am 

making my hay: 
The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's breath 

to-day. 

The bees and I are alone in the grass: the air is so 
very still 

I hear the dam, so loud, that shines beyond the sul- 
len mill. 

Tes, the air is so still that I hear almost the sounds 

I can not hear — 
That, when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty 

ear: 

The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy 
swaths they sweep — 
21 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 



They ring about me, resting, wlien I waver half 



So still I am not sure if a cloud, low down, unseen 

there be. 
Or if something brings a rumor home of the cannon 

so far from me: 

Far away in Virginia where Joseph and Grant, I know, 
Will tell them what I meant when first I had my 
mowers go ! 

Joseph he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three 
Whose shadow can darken my door again, and lighten 
my heart for me. 

Joseph he is my eldest — ^how his scythe was striking 

ahead ! 
William was better at shorter heats, but Jo in the 

long-run led. 

William he was my youngest; John, between them, 

I somehow see, 
When my eyes are shut, with a little board at his 

head in Tennessee. 
22 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

But William came home one morniug early, from Get- 
tysburg, last July 

(The mowing was over already, although the only 
mower was I:) 

William, my captain, came home for good to his mother ; 

and I'll be bound 
We were proud and cried to see the flag that wrapt 

his coffin around; 

For a company from the town came up ten miles with 

music and gun: 
It seem'd his country claim'd him then — as well as 

his mother — her son. 

But Joseph is yonder with Grant to-day, a thousand 

miles or near, 
And only the bees are abroad at work with me in the 

clover here. 

Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that humm'd 

again in the air? 
Yet, may be, the cannon are sounding now their 
Onward to Richmond there. 
23 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

But under the beech by the orchard, at noon, I sat 

an hour it would seem — 
It may be I slept a minute, too, or waver'd into a 

dream. 

For I saw my boys, across the field, by the flashes 

as they went. 
Tramping a steady tramp as of old with the strength 

in their arms unspent; 

Tramping a steady tramp, they moved like soldiers 

that march to the beat 
Of music that seems, a part of themselves, to rise 

and fall with their feet; 

Tramping a steady tramp, they came with flashes of 

silver that shone. 
Every step, from their scythes that rang as if they 

needed the stone — 

(The field is wide and heavy with grass) — and, com- 
ing toward me they beam'd 

With a shine of light in their faces at once, and — 
surely I must have dream'd! 
24 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

For I sat alone in the clover-field, the bees were 

working ahead. 
There were three in my vision — remember, old man: 

and what if Joseph were dead ! 

But I hope that he and Grant (the flag above them 

both, to boot,) 
Will go into Richmond together, no matter which is 

ahead or afoot! 

Meantime alone at the mowing here — an old man 

somewhat gray — 
I must stay at home as long as I can, making myself 

the hay. 

And so another round — the quail in the orchard 

whistles blithe — 
But first I'll drink at the spring below, and whet 

again my scythe. 
3 26 



THE SUNSHINE OF SHADOWS. 

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF THREE CHILDREN. 

Three children's shadow- faces look 
From my familiar picture-book: 
Far from their father's threshold sweet 
I found them in a noisy street. 

"Dear children, come with me," I said, 
"And make my home your own instead; 
Your gentle looks, your tender words. 
Shall mate the sunbeams, charm the birds." 

They came, but never lip is stirr'd 
With merry laugh or mirthful word: 
As in a trance at me they look 
Whene'er I ope their prisoning book. 

But as I gaze, in revery bound, 
The silence overflows with sound: 
26 



THE SUNSHINE OF SHADOWS. 



From 2;arden haunts of birds and bees 
Hum voices through the blossoming trees. 



Like waters heard when breezes blow, 
Light laughters waver to and fro; 
Then, when my dream is gone, I say 
"Some wind has blown the sound away. 

For the light breeze, alighting brief, 
Turns with its sudden wings the leaf, 
And, like a passing sunshine, they 
Seem so to shout and fly away! 
27 



HIGHER TENANTS. 

After Winter fires were ended, and the last spark, 

vanishino; 
From the embers on our hearthstone, flew into the 

sky of spring: 

In the night-time, in the morning — when the air was 
hiish'd around — ^ 

Throbbing vaguely on the silence, came a dull, mys- 
terious sound: 

Like the sultry hum of thunder, at the sullen close 

of day, 
Out of clouds that brood and threaten on the horizon 

far away. 

"'Tis," I said, "the April thunder," and I thought 

of flowers that spring, 
And of trees, that stand in blossom, and of birds that 

fly and sing. 

28 



HIGHER TENANTS. 

But tlie sound, repeated often — nearer, more familiar 
grown — 

From our chimney seem'd descending, and the swal- 
low's wings were known. 

Where the lithe flames leap'd and lighten'd, charm 

of host and cheer of guest. 
There the emigrant of Summer chose its homestead, 

built its nest. 

Then I dream'd of poets dwelling, like the swallow, 

long ago, 
Overhead in dusky places ere their songs were 

heard below; 

Overhead in humble attics, ministers of higher 
things : 

Underneath were busy people, overhead were heaven- 
ly wings! 

And T thought of homely proverbs that on simple 

lips had birth, 
Born of gentle superstitions at old firesides of the 

earth : 

29 



HIGHER TENANTS. 



How, where'er the swallow builded under human 

roofs its nest, 
Something holier, purer, higher, in the house became 



Peace, or Love, or Health, or Fortune — something 

Prosperous, from the air 
'Lighting with the wings of swallows, breathed 

divine possession there. 

"Friendly gods," I said, "descending, make their 

gentler visits so, 
Fill the air with benedictions — songs above and 

songs below!" 

Then I murmur'd, "Welcome, swallow; I, your land- 
lord, stand content: 

Even if song were not sufficient, higher Tenants pay 
your rent!" 

30 



PASSENGERS. 

Night held aloft the gentle star, 
Her earliest watchfire in the dark, 

And by the window of the car 

Flutter'd and flew the hurrying spark. 

Its pathway finding through the snows, 
The train rush'd on with tremulous roar — 

Like one whose purpose burns and glows, 
A torch to lead his life, before. 

The darkness grew around the face 
Of every traveler for the night : 

A sudden vision fill'd the place 

And touch'd the gloom with tender light. 

Not from the holy world unknown : 

A gentle mission of the air 
From happy hearth and threshold flown, 

Familiar angels, gather'd there. 
31 



PASSENGERS. 

prayers that breathe from faces bright, 

thoughts of love that will not sleep, 
dreams that give the soul by night 

Its wings the body may not keep ! 

Not unattended, far away, 

The wanderer moves with throngs unknown 
Ye meet or follow, night or day — 

1 saw your heavenly shapes alone ! 

32 



SUNDOWN. 

"While stealthy breezes kiss to frosty gold 
The swells of foliage down the vale serene, 
And all the sunset fills 
The dreamland of the hills, 
Now all the enchantment of October old 
Feels a cold veil fall o'er its passing scene. 

Low sounds of Autumn creep along the plains, 
Through the wide stillness of the woodlands brown, 
Where the still waters glean 
The melancholy scene ; 
The cattle, lingering slow through river lanes. 

Brush yellowing vines that swing through elm- 
trees down. 

The forests, climbing up the northern air, 

Wear far an azure slumber through the light, 
Showing, in pictures strange, 
The stealthy wand of change ; 
The corn shows languid breezes, here and there — 
Faint-heard o'er all the bottoms wide and bright. 
33 



SUNDOWN. 

On many a silent circle slowly blown, 

The hawk, in suu-flush'd calm suspended high, 
With careless trust of might 
Slides wing-wide through the light — 
Now golden through the restless dazzle shown, 
Now drooping down, now swinging up the sky. 

Wind-worn along their sunburnt gables old, 
The barns are full of all the Indian sun, 
In golden quiet wrought 
Like webs of dreamy thought. 
And in their Winter clasp serenely fold 

The green year's earnest promise harvest-won. 

With evening bells that gather, low or loud, 
A village, through the distance, poplar-bound, 
O'er meadows silent grown, 
And lanes with crisp leaves strown. 
Lifts up one spire, aflame, against a cloud 

That slumbers eastward, slow and silver-crowned. 
34 



THE OLD MAN AND THE, SPRING-LEAVES. 

Underneath the beeclien tree 
All things fall iu love with me ! 
Birds, that sing so sweetly, sung 
Ne'er more sweet when I was young; 
Some sweet breeze, I will not see, 
Steals to kiss me lovingly ; 
All the leaves, so blithe and brigiit,. 
Dancing sing in Maying light 
Over me: '-At last, at last. 
He has stolen from the Past." 

Wherefore, leaves, so gladly mad? 
I am rather sad than glad. 

" He is the merry child that play'd 
Underneath our beechen shade, 
Years ago ; whom all things bright 
Gladden'd, glad with his delight!" 
35 



THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRING-LEAVES. 

I am not the child that play'd 

Underneath your beechen shade ; 

I am not the boy ye sung 

Songs to, in lost fairy-tongue. 

He read fairy dreams below, 

Legends leaves and flowers must know ; 

He dream'd fairy dreams, and ye 

Changed to fairies, in your glee 

Dancing, singing from the tree ; 

And, awaken'd, fairy-land 

Circled childhood's magic wand ! 

Joy swell'd his heart, joy kiss'd his brow ; 

I am following funerals now. 

Fairy shores from Time depart; 

Lost horizons flush my heart. 

I am not the child that play'd 

Underneath your beechen shade. 

" 'Tis the merry child that play'd 
Underneath our beechen shade 
Years ago ; whom all things bright 
Loved, made glad with his delight ! " 

Ah ! the bright leaves will not know 
That an old man dreams below ! 



THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRING-LEAVES. 

No ; they will not liear nor see, 
Clapping their hands at finding me, 
Singing, dancing from their tree ! 
Ah ! their happy voices steal 
Time away : again I feel. 
While they sing to me apart, 
The lost child come in my heart : 
In the enchantment of the Past, 
The old man is the child at last I 
37 



FIRES IN ILLINOIS. 



How bright this wierd autumnal eve — 
While the wild twilight clings around, 

Clothing the grasses every-where, 
With scarce a dream of sound ! 



The high horizon's northern line, 
With many a silent-leaping spire, 

Seems a dark shore — a sea of flame — 
Quick, crawling waves of fire ! 

I stand in dusky solitude, 

October breathing low and chill. 

And watch the far-off blaze that leaps 
At the wind's wayward will. 

These boundless fields, behold, once more, 
Sea-like in vanish'd summers stir ; 

From vanish'd autumns comes the Fire — 
A lone, bright harvester ! 
38 



i 



FIRES IN ILLINOIS. 

I see wide terror lit before — 

Wild steeds, fierce herds of bison here, 
And, blown before the flying flame, 

The flying-footed deer ! 

Long trains (with shaken bells, that moved 
Along red twilights sinking slow) 

Whose wheels grew weary on their way. 
Far westward, long ago ; 

Lone wagons bivouack'd in the blaze, 
That, long ago, stream'd wildly past; 

Faces from that bright solitude 
In the hot gleam aghast ! 

A glare of faces like a dream, 

No history after or before. 
Inside the horizon with the flames, 

The flames — nobody more ! 

That vision vanishes in me, 

Sudden and swift and fierce and bright; 
Another gentler vision fills 

The solitude, to-night: 
39 



FIRES IN. ILLINOIS. 

The horizon lightens every-where, 
The sunshine rocks on windy maize ; 

Hark, every-where are busy men, 
And children at their plays ! 

Far church-spires twinkle at the sun. 
From villages of quiet born. 

And, far and near, and every-where, 
Homes stand amid the corn. 

No longer driven by wind, the Fire 
Makes all the vast horizon glow, 

But, numberless as the stars above^ 
The windows shine below ! 
40 



KING'S TAVERN. 

Far-off spires, a mist of silver, shimmer from tlie 

far-off town; 
Haunting here the dreary turnpike stands the tavern, 

crumblino- down. 

o 

Half-a-mile before you pass it, half-a-mile when you 

are gone. 
Like a ghost it comes to meet you, ghost-like still it 

follows on. 



Never more the sign- board, swinging, flaunts its 
gilded wonder there: 

"Philip King" — a dazzled harvest shock'd in west- 
ern sunset air! 



Never, as with nearer tinkle through the dust of 

long ago, 
Creep the Pennsylvania wagons up the twilight — 

white and slow. 

4 41 



KING S TAYERN. 

With a low, monotonous thunder, yonder flies the 

hurrying train — 
Hark, the echoes in the quarry! — in the woodland 

lost again ! 

Never more the friendly windows, red with warmth 

and Christian light, 
Breathe the traveler's benediction to his brethren in 

the night. 

Old in name The Haunted Tavern holds the barren 

rise alone — 
Standing high in air deserted, ghost-like long itself 

has grown. 

Not a pane in any window — many a ragged corner- 
bit: 

Boys, the strolling exorcisors, gave the ghost their 
notice — "Quit." 

Jamestown-weeds have close invaded, year by year, 

the bar-room door, 
Where, within, in damp and silence gleams the lizard 

on the floor. 

42 



KING S TAVERN. 

Til rough the roof the drear Novembers trickle down 

the midnight slow; 
In the Summer's warping sunshine green with moss 

the shingles grow. 

Yet in Maying wind the locust, sifting sunny blossom, 

snows, 
And the rose-vine still remembers some dear face 

that loved the rose: 

Climbing up a Southern casement, looking in neg- 
lected air; 

And, in golden honey -weather, careful bees are hum- 
ming there. 

In the frozen moon at midnight some have heard, 

when all was still — 
Nothing, I know! A ghostly silence keeps the 

tavern on the hill! 

43 



ONE OF TWO. 

Listen and look ! If you listen, yon see 

A nest with a bird in yonder tree : 

Above, in the leaves that glitter with May, 

The little half-owner is singing to-day : 

" We are very proud, we are rich, an.d bless'd- 

Come and look, if you please, at our nest." 

Listen and look ! If you look, you hear 
The sweetest song you have heard for a year : 
Over the nest on the tremulous spray 
The little half-owner is singing to-day : 
"Soon, in the nest I have asked you to see, 
Listen and look for our family 1" 
44 



AT EYEXINa. 

Hark, out of all the neighboring forest hum 
The mingled voices of a myriad things, 
(A Sound that half is Silence listening) — 
Birds, insects loud with summer, brooks that creep 
Slow through the dark and flutter in the light 
(As if with prison'd wings) and hurry on, 
And the low, lazy turning evermore 
Of restless leaves unnumber'd, half-asleep 
And yet unsleeping. These, while twilight steals 
Great stealthy veils of silence over all, 
Feed my old indolence with newer food, 
Till, all forgetful of the hour, I see. 
Winking above a western cloud, the star 
Beloved by lovers and the lover's friend, 
And, underneath the boughs and far and near. 
The fireflies climbing into dusky air, 
Lifting their million stars from grass and weed 
Wet with the dew; meanwhile the stars on high 
Start one by one — from cells invisible — 
45 



AT EVENING. 

Visible in the darkness suddenly, 
Cotemporaries of the dreamy hour. 
Oh, dear to me the coming forth of stars ! 
After the trivial tumults of the day 
They fill the heaven, they hush the earth with awe, 
And, when my life is fretted pettily 
With transient nothings, it is good, I deem. 
From darkling windows to look forth and gaze 
At this new blossoming of Eternity 
'Twixteach To-morrow and each dead To-day, 
Or else with solemn footsteps modulate 
To spheral music wander forth and know 
Their radiant individualities 
And feel their presence newly, hear again 
The silence that is God's voice speaking, slow 
In starry syllables, for evermore. 
46 



A LOST GRAVEYARD. 

Near by, a soundless road is seen, o'ergrown with 

grass and brier ; 
Far off, the highway's signal flies — a hurrying dust 

of fire. 

But here, among forgotten graves, in June's delicious 

breath, 
I linger where the living loved to dream of lovely 

death. 

Worn letters, lit with heavenward thought, these 

crumbled headstones wear ; 
Fresh flowers (old epitaphs of Love) are fragrant here 

and there. 

Years, years ago, these graves were made — no mourn- 
ers come to-day : 

Their footsteps vanish'd, one by one, moving the 
other way. 

47 



A LOST GRAVEYARD. 

Through the loud world they walk, or lie — like those 

here left at rest — 
With two long-folded useless arms on each forgotten 

breast. 

48 



THE SIGHT OF ANGELS. 

The angels come, the angels go, 

Through open doors of purer air ; 
Their moving presence oftentimes we know, 

It thrills us every-where. 

Sometimes we see them : lo, at night, 
Our eyes were shut but open'd seem : 

The darkness breathes a breath of wondrous light, 
And then it was a dream ! 
5 49 



TAKING THE NIGHT-TRAIN. 

A TREMULOUS word, a lingering hand, the burning 
Of restless passion smouldering — so we part ; 

Ah, slowly from the dark the world is turning 
When midnight stars shine in a heavy heart. 

The streets are lighted, and the myriad faces 

Move through the gaslight, and the homesick feet 

Pass by me, homeless; sweet and close embraces 
Charm many a threshold — laughs and kisses sweet. 

From great hotels the stranger throng is streaming, 
The hurrying wheels in many a street are loud ; 

Within the depot, in the gaslight gleaming, 
A glare of faces, stands the waiting crowd. 

The whistle screams; the wheels are rumbling slowly, 
The path before us glides into the light: 

Behind, the city sinks in silence wholly ; 
The panting engine leaps into the night. 
50 



TAKING TUE N]GHT-TRAIN. 



I seem to see each street a mystery growing, 
In mist of dreamland — vague, forgotten air : 

Does no sweet soul, awaking, feel me going? 

Loves no dear heart, in dreams, to keep me there ? 
61 



TO THE LARES. 

Dear Household Deities, worsliipp'd best, we deem, 

With gentle sacrifice of Love alone ! 
Guardians of Home, who make the hearthstone seem 

Altar and shrine, make our hearth your own : 
Whether the North-wind walls the world away 

With snowy bastions from his frozen lands, 
Or Zephyr through our window, day by day, 

Climbs like a child with roses in his hands. 
52 



OUTGOING. 

A WRATHFUL dust, tlie spirit of the town, 

Follows me, loth to let me free, until 

I come to this close lane whose gateway leads 

From the low, heated city to the peace, 

The high domestic quiet, of the hills. 

It is a narrow lane (on either side 

A wall: the left of trees — the right of sjtone, 

Roof'd with a hedge) and hides me from the dust 

That like a baffled hunter flies beyond. 

And welcomes me caressingly with airs 

Breathed from a myriad things that hold the breath 

Of Summer — weeds that blossom, thorns that flower; 

And blesses me with dear and gentle sounds, 

(That, mingled, make but quiet felt the more.) 

And dewy sights that, seen however oft, 

Make the eye always new and can not tire. 

At the cool opening of this guardless lane 
I think the tender Mother whom I love, 
63 



OUTGOING. 

Awaiting, whispers with her brooding voice — 
Her single, gentle voice that is not heard 
By the deaf ear but in the hearkening heart — 
"Welcome, child come back! for all the day 
I long'd for thee, my child, and all the day 
I dream'd thee lost in yonder barren town, 
And sent my messengers to call for thee. 
Didst thou not hear a bird beside thy pane 
A tender moment — hear but hardly hear? 
Didst thou not see a bee that came and went, 
Striking thy window — see but hardly see? 
Didst thou not feel a wind that turn'd thy page, 
Intruding, playful, like a timid child 
That fears repulses — feel but hardly feel? 
Vexed by the flying leaf, thy blessing held 
The breeze that linger'd, but thou didst not come. 
I fear for thee, too long in yonder town, 
For they forget me there — and wilt not thou? 
But see my welcome; see my open door." 
So with the dear rebuke I enter in. 

The trees in sunset tremble goldenly 
Through all their leaves. I wander gladly down 
Over a bridge across a troubled rill 
(Fluttering from its dark with frighten'd wings) ; 
64 



OUTGOING. 

Beyond, the roadway climbs around the tiglit, 
And, look ! beneath me, with a music heard 
Best in the heart of silence far away, 
A falling fleece of silver, shines the dam : 
Above, the quiet mirror lets the duck 
Float, brooding on its shadow, motionless ; 
Below, the shallows glitter every-where 
As if with shoals of hurrying fish that leap 
Over each other noisily in the sun ; 
And, farther down, the greenly-hidden race 
Persuades the seeking eye to wander where, 
Gray through the boughs of sycamore and elm, 
Tremulous with its myriad-moving wheels. 
With sullen thunder stands the busy mill. 
While over all, through azure haze adust, 
Show the thick spires and the bronz'd marble dome, 
Transfigured, far-off, for my memory, 
Made beautiful for my forgetfulness. 
66 



TO A CHILD. 

Oh, while from me, tliis tender morn, depart 

Dreams vague and vain and wild. 
Sing, happy child, and dance into my heart, 

AVhere I was once a child ! 

Your eyes they send the butterflies before. 

Your lips they kiss the rose ; 
gentle child, Joy opes your morning door — 

Joy kisses your repose ! 

The fairy Echo-children love you, try 

To steal your loving voice ; 
Flying you laugh — they, laughing while you fly, 

Gray with your glee rejoice. 

Oh, while from me, this tender morn, depart 

Dreams vague and vain and wild. 
Play, happy child — sing, dance within my heart, 

Where I will be a child ! 
66 



IN OCTOBER. 

A flush'd cathedral, grand with loneliness, 
Gloomy with light and bright with shadow, seems 
Thy catholic air, October. Holiest gleams 
Alight like angels in each dim recess 
Through the stain'd oriels of the east and west ; 
Thy floors float radiant with fliitterings 
Of moving shadows, ghosts of glorious wings ; 
Some organ's soul arises in the breast 
Of him who walks thy aisles in revery bound : 
The stops of silence tremble into sound. 
Lo, Nature brings her dead for burial rite ! 
Upon thy solemn altars dress'd for Death 
She lays her beautiful ; the mother's brow 
Is bow'd, while for her darling ones she grieves 
And o'er their burial breathes her tenderest breath 
As o'er their baptism in the April light; 
And Autumn, gorgeous preacher, murmurs now 
Sermons of dying flowers and falling leaves. 
67 



WHITE FROST. 

The ghostly Frost is come j 

I feel him in the night: 
The breathless Leaves are numb, 

Motionless with affright : 
The moon, arisen late and still, 
Sees all their faces beaded chill. 

The ghostly Frost is here, 

I see him in the night; 
Through all the meadows near 

Waver his garments white : 
Ha ! at our window looking through ? 
Ah, Frost, this Fire would conquer you ! 
58 



RESURRECTION. 

No season, friend, may seem 
Dearer than that through which I seem'd to go 
When the blind Fever, piloting my dream. 

Drifted me to and fro. 

I thought that you were lost : 
That Light in the dark, or Shadow in the sun, 
Had taken you ; and helpless I was toss'd— 

Comfortless and undone ! 

Through all familiar air 
That you had breathed I wander'd, but I found 
Only your absence in my own despair — 

never-healing wound ! 

1 could not find you, and 

I knew I could not ; in a grave you lay 
Which I had seen not — over dust and sand 
Blown in a wind's lost way ! 
69 



RESURRECTION. 

At last you came : behold, 
I saw you — from among the dead, I deem'd : 
Not free from Death, but bearing as of old 

Your living child, you seem'd. 

White with the following light 
Of some new world, whose darkness we but know 
Who blindly look, you claim'd your dearest right, 

The mother's place, below, 

A mother's tender heart, 
That would not rest, had brought you to your own. 
They told me soon again you must depart 

And leave your world alone. 

But still you stay'd and still 
You would not go, and Life again at last 
Renew'd the warm persuasion of its will, 

Breathing, and held you fast. 

And so my dream was gone. 
Lo, I had wander'd almost to that brink 
Where the great Darkness standing in the Dawn 

Makes the night-traveler shrink. 
60 



RESURRECTION. 

"j^ was I had pass'd away, 
And my return that brought you back to me ; 
I, blind in the mist — you, vanished in the day, 

Return'd when I could see. 

And, still unwearying, lo ! 
Though worn and weary, you had trembled near, 
tender watcher, fearing I should go, 

And hoping out your fear 1 
61 



FORESIGHT OF FATE. 

Mother and Child walk in a path of flowers, 
Through a bright garden tended by the Hours. 



From gentle blossoms, fragrant-hearted there, 
Birds, singing, lift the child's heart into air. 



Some dreadful House before them grows, unknown : 
A ghost of grated casements stares from stone ! 

Whence came the phantom? — what enchantment wild? 
The Mother sees it not nor can the child. 

Lo, some lost face, haunting with dreamy glare 
The darkness, looking through the darkness there ! 

How strange if he, lost to himself within, 
Were that same child pure as a rose from sin ; 

And if that face, through those fierce bars aglare, 
Saw that same Child cling to that Mother's care I 
62 



TO MY BROTHER GUY, 

AFTER BUTTERFLIES. 

I HAVE watch'd you, little Guy, 
Chasing mauy a butterfly; 
I have seen you, boy, by stealth 
Strive to pluck the flying wealth 
From the blossoms where it grew, 
Miracle of a moment new; 
I have seen your redden'd face, 
Radiant from the bootless chase, 
Happy-eyed, with gladness sweet 
Laugh away each late defeat; 
I have heard your panting heart, 
Eager for another start, 
Taking newer chances fair 
For the elusive flower of air. 
I '11 not check your joyous chase. 
Calling it a useless race; 
I will not discourage you 
With experience seeming-true, 
63 



TO MY BROTHER GUY. 

Showing you with cynic art 
Chrysales within my heart; 
I '11 not whisper, prophesying, 
That the wings are golden, flying — 
Dropping all their pretty dust 
At the touch of the sweet trust: 
Words of warm simplicity, 
Fusing cold philosophy, 
These would light your lips and brow — 
You would chase them anyhow! 
Chase them, fleet-foot champion. 
Lithe knight-errant of the sun! 
Chase the sultry butterflies. 
Tropic summers in disguise! 
Chase them, while your buoyant feet 
Take the heart's ecstatic beat, 
While your playmate is the breeze, 
While the flowers will hide the bees, 
While the birds come singing to you. 
While the sunshine gladdens through you ! 
Butterflies, if caught or not. 
Thorough many a gentle spot 
They will lead — though vain the chase 
It must be in the heaven's face : 
64 



TO MY BROTHER GUY. 

For they fly among the flowers, 
In bright air, through sunny hours. 
Chase them — nothing 's dead nor dying 
Look, your butterflies are flying 1 
65 



TO ONE IN A DARKENED HOUSE. 

FRIEND, whose loss is mine in part, 
Your grief is mine in part, although 

1 can not measure in my heart 
The immeasurable woe. 

As from a shining window cast 

The fireside's gleam abroad is known, 

I knew the brightness that is pass'd — 
Its inner warmth your own. 

vanish'd firelight! — dark, without. 
The late illumined sphere of space ; 

The warmth within has died about 
Your darken'd heart and face. 

If I could hide your gloom with light, 
Or breathe you back the warmth of old- 

vain! I stand in outer night 
And feel you inner cold! 
66 



THE BLUE-BIRD'S BURIAL. 



After long rains November, in a brief dream of 

Spring, 
Had the tearful eyes of April ; some trees were 

blossoming. 

But, long before, October dear April's bloom had 

bless'd — 
Her goldene^t hope lay ripen'd upon his swarthy 

breast. 

Ilush'd were the noons and leafless the boughs of 

the cherry tree, 
Where the blue -bird sang as prophet, and as preacher 

humm'd the bee. 

Deep in her palace of honey the queen-bee dream'd 

of Spring, 
And moved in winter slumber while the trees were 

blossoming. 

67 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

And tlie blue-bird dropp'd — remember, we buried 
him, darling, found 

With the dead leaves, nameless, homeless, and coffin- 
less, on the ground. 

We found him and bless'd and buried the prophet 

of blossom and bee, 
With painted leaves for his cover, under his laurel 

tree : 

Saying, " Dear poet and prophet, you bless'd the 

world, we know; 
We give you the poet's guerdon — a grave in Winter 



" But blessed and blessing forever shall be the life 

you led ; 
Your breath was a breath of heaven — sleep warm in 

the Earth's cold bed. 

" Forgotten and unremember'd ? — remember'd and 

unforgot ! 
Your soul shall rise and flutter from many a poet's 

thought ; 

68 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

"And all the haunted silence deep in the poet's 

breast, 
Of Spring and Love and Longing, shall rise with 

wings, express'd. 

" Sleep, therefore, April's darling, twin of the violet 
dead. 

With the ghost of song in your bosom, the star- 
flower at your head." 

II. 

You found the star-flower, dearest. never — though 

all the years 
Go out with dirges and darkness and comfortless 

Rachel's tears — 

Shall flush the world with fragrance a Spring so lovely 

here 
As the dream of Spring, in Autumn, to me you made 

so dear ; 

When, wandering in the woodland, that gentle day, 

we found 
The blue-bird, nameless, homeless, and coffinless, on 

the ground ; 

69 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

When, child at heart forever, but woman sweet and 
brave, 

With world-old, tender fancies, you kiss'd the blue- 
bird's grave. 

That night the late, hush'd moonrise came, dusky, 

large and red : i 

Jewel'd with frosty jewels it saw November dead. 

Within, our fire kept dancing to all sweet dreams and 

bright : 
You said, "I hear the blue-bird sing in my heart 



to-night." 



70 



SLEEP. 

The Mist crawls over the River, 
Hiding the shore on either- side, 

And, under the veiling Mist forever,. 
Neither hear we nor feel we the tide. 

But our skiff has the will of the River, 
Though nothing is seen to be pass'd ; 

Though the Mist may hide it forever, forever 
The current is drawing as fast. 

The matins sweet from the far-off town 
Fill the air with their beautiful dream ; 

Tlie vespers were hushing the twilight down 
When we lost our oars on the stream. 
71 



FIRELIGHT ABROAP. 

While the wide twilight hushes every thing, 
And the unrisen moon's low mystery 
.Reddens the snow with smother'd Eastern fire, 
And, issuing suddenly and bright from heaven, 
Hangs yonder star and flutters, look, as bright, 
Starting from their close heavens, one by one. 
The stars that bless the ended day with peace 
Shine steadfastly — the gentler stars of Home! 

As one who, thoughtful, gazing at a star, 

Marvels what lovelier uplifted lives 

Are bound and dwell within its shining air, 

By my lone casement so I love to watch 

That halo of the fireside shed abroad 

Into the world — Home's holy breath of light — 

Dreaming of spirits in its inner glow. 

There the young bride alights from charmed air 
Into tke real air, enchanted still, 



riRELIGIIT ABROAD. 

Breathing. a bower of roses evermore 

Over her husband's dusty week-day toil — 

Within the harvest lightening the sheaves, 

The forge's hammer. There the mother smiles 

Her patient days away in daily love, 

With gentle lips and tender- touching hands. 

There her blithe children, asking for her knees, 

(Illumined by the climbing, dancing blaze,) 

Cling warm forever, though the years have swept 

Even the last spark in ashes, long ago. 

From the dear hearthstone, in quick winds of change ; 

There play their dreams and, lisping dream-like 

prayers. 
Send them to Heaven and sleep at Heaven's door. 
And there the old, remembering (they who seem 
Like helpless trees of some strong forest gone,) 
Watch the white ashes crumble from the flame. 

If angels come from Heaven to our dim earth, 
Thither they come, close visitors unseen. 
To find their mortal kindred — as of old — 
Troubled and sadden'd at their empty air; 
And the three angels born in human hearts — 
One playing hide-and-seek, a fickle child; 
One, the strong blind believer close to God, 
7 73 



FIRELIGHT ABROAD. 

Whispering, tlirougli all darkness, "I have light;" 
And she, the gentle Warmer of the hearth, 
Kindling a flame where the last ember flies — 
There in the firelight have their dwelling-place. 

The fireside ! 0, a warm breath fills the name ! 
The world's first good, the earth's last happiness, 
Circle that warmth and breathe that sacred air, 
The atmosphere of those soft lights of Home! 
We climb for fame, we walk in mountain paths, 
But there's a cottage down in yonder vale: 
Through the long strife, the storm to take the hour, 
Comes the cool wind from the green pathway thither; 
Through the white-heated dust a sudden breath 
Of the one rose that guards the happy gate ; 
From the jarr'd street the ever-opening door! 

Oh, there we warm our hearts when life is cold, 
With memory of days that warm no more ! 
Circling the firelight from all exile lands, 
The anclior that no wind can drift away 
Still draws us back. One fireside lights the world I 
74 



THE BURIED KING. 

Across the door-step, worn and old, 
The new bride, joyous, pass'd to-day; 

The gray rooms show'd an artful gold, 
All words were light, all faces gay. 

Ah, many years have lived and died 
Since she, the other vanish'd one. 

Into that door, a timid bride. 

Bore from the outer world the sun. 

lily, with the rose's glow ! 

rose, the lily's garment clad ! — 
The rooms were golden long ago. 

All words were blithe, all f\ices glad. 

She wore upon her hand the ring. 

Whose frail and human bond is gone- 

A coffin keeps the jealous thing 
Radiant in shut oblivion : 
75 



THE BURIED RING. 

For she, (beloved, who loved so well,) 
In the last tremors of her breath, 

Whisper'd of bands impossible — 

"She would not give her ring to Death." 

But he, who holds a newer face 

Close to his breast with eager glow, 

Has he forgotton her embrace, 
The first shy maiden's, long ago? 

Lo, in a ghostly dream of night, 

A vision, over him she stands. 
Her mortal face in heavenlier light. 

With speechless blame but blessing hands! 

And, smiling mortal sorrow's pain 

Into immortal peace more deep, 
She gives him back her ring again — 

The new bride kisses him from sleep! 
76 



THE WHITE LILY. 

I dream'd and saw a lily in my dream 
Of fever'd wakefulness at twilight liour: 
Issuing from moonlight grew that blessed flower 
Over my pillow, and the tender gleam 
Of its white gentleness, like a soothing stream, 
Alighted on me, and I ask'd: "What dower 
Of purity is thine, that 'gainst the power 
Of all impurity a charm doth seem?" 
Transfigured dreadlessly the lily grew 
An augeFs stature, passing so away. 
Then I awoke from fever which had been, 
But in that dewy presence could not stay, 
And over me you lean'd with holier dew. 
Out of your heart had grown the flower within, 
77 



TWOFOLD. 

If you should vanish, in some lonely place, 
And never, never more appear again, 
(Though your lost face should float about my brain, 
The elusive phantom of a lost embrace. 
Out of the mystery of a starless space,) 
And I should strive, with long conceptive pain, 
Your form so dear from marble to regain, 
Or paint the flying memory of your face : 
I have not seen you, love, as others deem — 
Though stone or color might their semblance give, 
I 'd watch a child steal shyly from your heart, 
To comfort little birds that orphans seem, 
Or flowers that need a drop of dew to live, 
And this, I think, would baffle subtle art. 
78 



ANNIVERSARY. 

A Mother and a Child, most blessed sight, 
My spirit saw — a pure and holy pair: 
The infant open-eyed to morning air 
Of its new world, baptized in earthly light ; 
The Mother with the ecstatic knowledge bright 
Of her first motherhood, how gently fair ! 
Breathing her blissful breath to heaven in prayer, 
Keeping her heart so near her new delight ! 
"Who are you, gentle visions?" then I said — 
But these were gone. An Angel came and spoke : 
"I am that mother; see my darling's head 
I lay upon your bosom." I awoke. 
Warm with great tender gratitude, and wept ; 
Your head was on my bosom while I slept. 
79 



AWAKE IN DARKNESS. 

Mother, if I could cry from out tlie night 

And you could come (Oh, tearful memory !) 

How softly close ! to soothe and comfort me, 

As when a child awaken 'd with affright, 

My lips again, as weak and helpless quite. 

Would call you, call you, sharp and plaintively— 

vain, vain, vain ! Your face I could not see ; 

Your voice no more would bring my darkness light. 

To this shut room, though I should wail and weep, 

You would not come to speak one brooding word 

And let its comfort warm me into sleep 

And leave me dreaming of its comfort heard : 

Though all the night to morn at last should creep, 

My cry would fail, your answer be deferr'd. 

November, 1865. 

80 



FOR A aHAYESTONE. 

The marble lias no speech but that we give, 
And we are dumb, and, speecbless, pass away 

The silence in which our aflfections live 

Holds all we need to speak and can not say. 
81 



FOOTSTEPS RETURNING 



RIDINa THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Old miracles liappeu every day: 
That nothing 's new in earth or air 
It needs no Solomon to say. 

Wonderful to the foaling mare, 
Was dropp'd a eolt of marvelous mettle. 
'Twas common stock, both dam and sire. 
His mane was like a flying fire 
When in the unbridled fields he flew. 
And some believed him winged, too. 
The use of such a skittish creature 
The village folk could hardly settle; 
No rider dared his dangerous back 
Save one, a youth, whose mate he see^ii'd, 
Who shunn'd like him -the dusty track 
With something of a kindred nature — 
A boy who did not well but dream'd, 
A vagabond with half-shut eyes 
Who would not sow in Paradise : 
85 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

To this one as his rider bow'd 
The flying-footed — humble, proud. 

'Twas plain he was not fit to plow; 

For lead or wheel horse on the road 

In vain were all attempts to break him — 

(To lead right willing he, in truth. 

Where none could follow him !) Forsooth, 

He balk'd and scorn'd the curse or goad ! 

" He 's good to look at, that is clear. 

But little profit anyhow" — 

A wrinkle cross'd the farmer's brow — 

"And so we'll find him rather dear. 

He eats enough — Lord knows — we know! 

Here! mount your run-away and go — 

To-morrow to the market take him!" 

The saying, then the doing : rare 
The splendors of the morning show'd. 
When ready for the journey there 
Stood horse and rider on the road. 
"For how much shall I sell him?" said 
The youth with pangs of dumb regret : 
"As much," the old man hot and red, 
"As he will bring and you will get!" 
86 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Wi4h many a shying make-pretense, 

As half in earnest, half in play, 

At sliding nothings on the way, 

With dainty prance and fiame-like bound, 

Aerial miles of flying fence. 

The dust behind, the wind before, 

Townward the horse his rider bore — 

Within the air, upon the ground. 

At length at day's most noisy heat 

They enter'd in the market street; 

Among the buyers soon they come. 

When— strange that it should happen so. 

But so it often happens — lo. 
The crowd for praise or blame are dumb : 
The merits of the matchless steed, 
Unrecognized, have little heed. 
At last one cried—" What have we here ? 
A beggar come to market, clear!" 
"What sorry jade is that?" another. 
And, strange! — how strange it seem'd, indeed !- 
Behold, the wondrous-mettled steed 
Has lost the spirit late so plain 
In forehead, foot, and mien and mane ; 
His eyes are dull, his flank no more 
Shines with the sunshine, as before ; 
87 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Their breath his nostrils lose or smother ; 

His ribs look out, his head is dropp'd, 

And, standing lost in public gaze. 

His heavenly pulses flutter, stopp'd. 

"You want to sell?" a jockey says — 

" I think, whatever be your price, 

Your buyer makes the sacrifice." 

" What are his good points ? — let us know them.' 

"As for his oats — why, let him show them!" 

"How many minutes make his mile?" 

"I have a dray-horse just his mate!" 

" Here, smith, is something for your doing : 

What hoofs! — he needs a deal of shoeing!" 

And one, a punner, passing late, 

"This was the winged horse, I vow: 

That he 's gone up — you see it now ! " 

Spoke with a self-perceiving smile. 

" Speaking of wings," another cries, 

" His can't be seen, you see : perhaps 

His ears, which can be seen, he flaps 

And thinks him flying — from the flies ! " 

The jockey's scorn, the jeerer's aim, 
Meanwhile, the horse and rider both, 
In mutual weakness, mutual shame, 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Hear — for they must, however loth. 
Till — at the last, when, weary grown, 
The crowd disperse and leave them there 
Unbought within the mart alone — 
Awaken'd into buoyant air 
From something like a dream of fame, 
A poet sees the sultry gleam 
Of morning on the city flame, 
Far-oif, and that deliverance came 
Thanks God : the Pegasus he strode 
And to the dusty market rode 
Was the vague Nothing of his dream 1 
8 89 



TO 



THE CALL OF THE YOUNG MAN. 

Beloved One — whose gentle, floating form 
Visits my dreams in blissful heart and eyes — 

Where art thou, Love? My heart is beating warm; 
From dreams alone, I rise ! 

Long have I known thee : first I saw thy fiice, 

With laughter ringing through thy girlhood years, 

Kissing the Future with a buoyant grace. 
The Past with lighted tears. 

Come from my dreaming to my waking heart! 

Awake, within my soul there stands alone 
Thy marble soul : in lovely dreams apart, 

Thy sweet heart fills the stone ! 

Oft I have trembled with a maiden near, 

In the dear dream that thou wast come at last, 

Veil'd in her face : oh, empty atmosphere ! — 
Those dreams woke in the Past ! 
90 



TO 



It may be, .thou hast ne'er had mortal birth, 

Or childhood's wings to Heaven with thee have 
flown. 

My Eve in Paradise! O'er all the Earth 
Must Adam walk alone ? 

Oh, that thou breathest Earth or Heaven, I know; 

I call, like Orpheus, into shadowy air : 
Where art thou, dear? My heart makes answer low — 

Its bridal chamber— " Where ? " 

Oh, waken in my morning thy pure eyes! 

Thy voice from angel-air of dreams remove. 
Sweet Chance ! blow those strange seeds of Paradise 

Together, flowering love ! 

While yet my life is in warm bloom, appear; 

Come ere the first veil from the years depart. 
Cottage with thee to me were palace. Dear, 

Thy palace be my heart! 
91 



AFTER A WHILE. 

On the cold liills the moon lies white, 
The ghostly Frost arises bright ; 
Lost winds wail in the homeless air, 
Wandering wearily, every-where : 
But, wrapt in dreams of summer mirth, 
My cricket sings upon the hearth; 
My heart to dreams his dreams beguile — 
^^ After a ivhile, after a while.^^ 

Below the embers ashes darkle ; 
Above, the lithe flames leap and sparkle, 
Dancing to all fantastic forms 
Of all that gladdens, cheers and warms; 
And, singing to my fancies sweet. 
The cricket's spell the flames repeat; 
My heart to dreams their dreams beguile — ■ 
^^ After a while ^ after a while. '^ 

I shut my eyes : my life I see — 
Oh, miracle ! — a blossoming tree ! 
92 



AFTER A WHILE. 

(The world's sad winds, that cried for rest, 
Cradled in blossoms slumber bless'd;) 
And from its fragant-hearted May 
Some sweet bird joins the cricket's lay; 
Oh, tender songs my dreams beguile — 

'-'•After a while, after a while.'* 

"Winds, rock the world in fiiiry dreams ! 
Rise, Frost, and haunt the sleeping streams ! 
Below the embers ashes darkle; 
Above, the lithe flames leap and sparkle; 
Sweet bird, bright flames, blithe cricket start 
The same dear song of hearth and heart ! — 
I whisper low, with sigh and smile, 

^^ After a while, after a while J' 
93 



GENIUS LOCI. 

Yes, this is the place where my boyhood 
Saw its beautiful season depart: 

The butterfly flutter'd in sunshine, 
The chrysalis lies in my heart! 

Still green are the hills in the distance, 
And breathing of Summer the farms, 

But the years take the Present forever 
To the Past with their shadowy arms. 

I wander in pathways familiar: 
Old faces forget, or are blind; 

The footsteps of strangers have trodden 
The footprints I deem'd I would find. 

Come back to me, beautiful visions! 

Steal over me, lovelier sky! 
With the flower-like soul of my boyhood, 

Blossom, sweet days gone by! 
94 



GENIUS LOCI. 

My boyhood, come back! In the sunshine 
A hoop is the world of his care: 

He gazes at me for a moment, 
And passes away in the air! 

Come back! From the school that is ended 
Boy-faces rush joyous and bright: 

One, only, among them remembers 
And vanishes into the light! 

Come back! With a kite in his heaven 
His heart's happy wings are agleam: 

He hearkens my call for a moment, 
And flashes away with my dream! 
95 



MELANCHOLY. 

Where'er I laugh a buried echo sighs; 

Some coffin full of ashes 
Uplifts its dead; a sea-deep sorrow lies 

Under a wave that flashes. 

I know not why this moan steals into May, 

To make its joy so hollow; 
Some woful hearse keeps hushing through the day- 

My thoughts, dark mourners, follow. 
96 



THE WEEK. 

Sweet Days, God's daughters, sliining o'er the world ! 
Bright are your feet on the far morning shore, 
And, going back to heaven for evermore 
Through twilight's dreamy golden gates unfurl'd, 
Your footsteps in the dews of evening shine. 
A radiant garland round the burning throne, 
Guarded with angel wings — a heavenly zone — 
Fair are ye all, dear Rays of Light Divine ! 
Yet fairest is she, the youngest of your name, 
In her pure garment of translucent white. 
And wearing on her head the halo-light 
Brightening till all things near her wear the same : 
For — though God loves ye all — when ye are bless'd 
His Hand lies on her brow, dear Day of Rest! 
9 97 



FOLDED DOWN. 

We read togetlier — here the book. 

(Eyes tender-lidded, drooping, brown !) 
The bees were in the roses. Look, 

The leaf is folded down. 

It is the story, dear and old, 

Whisper'd forever warm and new: 
The world is in its age of gold 

When two are lovers true. 

We read together : in the sun 

The brooklet laugh'd through grass and flowers, 
All birds were singing ; two in one 

We clasp'd the fragrant hours. 

The poet's flower — the rose of Love, 
Whence all our costliest honey flows — 

Was rooted in the book : above, 
Within our hearts the rose ! 
98 



FOLDED DOWN. 

T^ie poet's dream — the vision, Love, 
For which all sleeping wake, I deem — 

Shadow'd each page with wings : above, 
Within our souls the dream ! 

We read of Loss that leaves the heart 
A sea-shell on vague shores of fate, 

Murmuring, dumb : there walk'd apart 
A maiden desolate. 

A sail shone in the horizon's gleam 

Where the moon came — a twilight ghost, 

The specter of a vanish'd dream 
That haunts a lonely coast. 

What spider from the rose you kiss'd 
Crawl'd, that we read no more that day? 

We learn in many an autumn mist 
The brightness of the May. 

I turn the page — behold the prize : 
The years like funeral ravens flown. 

The sail 's reflected in the skies ; 
The shell has lost its moan. 
^9 



FOLDED DOWN. 

From shade to sun, to bliss from grief! 

December's warm'd by gracious May; 
Oh, fools ! we miss'd the golden leaf. 

I read alone to-day. 

Is it a memory or a dream? 

(Eyes tender-lidded, drooping, brown !) 
In that sad poem. Life, I deem. 

The leaf was folded down. 
100 



MIRAdE. 

I KNOW the Mirage — the vague, wandering ghost 
That haunts the desert's still and barren sand 
With the close vision of a lovelier land, 
Once blossoming but now forever lost: 
It rises to the eyes of men who bear 
Hunger of heart and thirst of lip in vain — 
Mocking their souls with rest. Behold, how plain! 
Taking the breathless sand and boundless air, 
It comes up from the horizon, far away: 
Lost fountains flutter under beckoning palm, 
(Singing, all birds of longing thither start,) 
Dear voices rise from homes where children play, 
The footsteps lighten, the blest air blows balm. 
Then all is sand — within a dreamer's heart! 
101 



AN ECHO. 

"Come back," I sigh'd— 

The flower 
I dropp'd upon the tide 

Was vanish'd many an hour. 
"Come back," the Echo sigh'd 

"Come back," I cried — 

The love, 
Elower-like I cast aside, 
An angel bears above. 
"Come back," the Echo cried. 
102 



SEPTEMBER. 

All things are full of life this autumn morn; 
The hills seem growing under silver cloud ; 
A fresher spirit in Nature's breast is born; 
The woodlands are blowing lustily and loud; 
The crows fly, cawing, among the flying leaves; 
On sunward-lifted branches struts the jay; 
The fluttering brooklet, quick and bright, receives 
Bright frosty silverings slow from ledges gray 
Of rock in buoyant sunshine glittering out; 
Cold apples drop through orchards mellowing; 
'Neath forest-eaves quick squirrels laugh and shout; 
Farms answer farms as through bright morns of 

Spring, 
And joy, with (Jancing pulses full and strong, 
Joy, every-where, goes Maying with a song ! 
103 



FALLEN LEAVES. 

I LOVE to steal my way 
Through the bright woods, when Autumn's work 

done 
And through the tree-tops all the dream-like day 

Breathes the soft golden sun ; 

When all is hush'd and still, 
Only a few last leaves, fluttering slow 
Down the warm air with ne'er a breeze's will — 

A ghost of sound below; 

When naught of song is heard, 
Save the jay laughing while all nature grieves, 
Or the lone chirp of some forgotten bird 

Among the fallen leaves. 

Around me every-where 
Lie leaves that trembled o-reen the Summer long. 
Holding the rainbow's tears in sunny air, 

And roof 'd the Summer's song. 
104 



FALLEN LEAVES. 

Why shun my steps to tread 
These silent hosts that every-where are strown, 
As if my feet were walking 'mong the dead, . 

And I alive alone? 

Hast no bright trees, O Past! 
Through whose bare boughs, once green, the sunshine 

grieves ? 
No hopes that flutter'd in the autumnal blast, 
No memories — Fallen Leaves? 
105 



TRAVELERS. 

We may not stand content : it is our part 
To drag slow footsteps after the far sight, 
The long endeavor following up the bright 
Quick aspiration; there is ceavseless smart 
Feeling but cold-hand surety for warm heart 
Of all desire; no man may say at night 
His goal is reach'd ; the hunger for the light 
Moves with the star; our thirst will not depart, 
Howe'er we drink. 'Tis what before us goes 
Keeps us aweary, will not let us lay 
Our heads in dreamland, though the enchanted palm 
Rise from our desert, though the fountain grows 
Up in our path, with slumber's flowering balm : 
The soul is o'er the horizon far away. 
106 



THE LOVE-LETTER. 

I GREET thee, loving letter — 
Unopen'd kiss tliee free, 

And dream her lips within thee 
Give back the kiss to me ! 

The fragrant little rose-leaf, 
She .sends by thee, is come : 

Ah, .in her heart was blooming 
The rose she stole it from ! 
107 



CONFIDANTS. 

All things that know a lover's heart 
Know the warm secret closed in mine ; 

From all things eager whispers start — 
"We know, we know it! she is thine." 

The swallow seeking southern skies, 

Where some clear summer waters shine, 

Circles my tropic dream and flies, 
Singing, "I fly, but she is thine." 

Pale flowers, which Autumn's lips have kiss'd, 
Whose far-off May gives back no sign, 

Murmur farewell — their souls in mist — 
But smile, in dying, "she is thine." 

The cricket from my hearth at night 
Thrills the vague hours with carols fine, 

Singing the darkness into light, 
"After a while, and she is thine." 
108 



THE BIRDS OF LONaiNd. 

The mournful Birds are flown 
That flutter'd in my breast 

Through all the days of Spring, 
And fill'd me with unrest. 

The Birds of Longing wild ! 

They came in April skies, 
Among the blossoming boughs. 

The winged prophecies. 

Of unknown summer lands 

They sang their haunting dreams- 
Poor tropic birds, asleep 

To W4ike in Arctic gleams ! 

"Whence came ye, Birds?" I said: 
They sang, "We have no home; 

Lost are the nests we loved — 
We long, and long must roam. 
109 



THE BIRDS OF LONGING. 

"Blown by the vernal winds^^ 
Warm blossom-bearers, we 

From soul to soul in Spring 
Drift over land and sea." 

no 



FIVE YEARS 



IIONOUS OF WAR. 

Wails of slow music move along the street, 
Before tlie slow march of a myriad feet 

Whose mournful echoes come; 
Banners are muffled, hiding all their sight 
Of sacred stars — the century's dearest light — • 

And, muffled, throbs the drum. 

Proud is the hearse our Mother gives her son, 
On the red altar laid her earliest one! 

Wrapp'd in her holiest pall 
He goes: her household guardians follow him; 
Eyes with their new heroic tears are dim; 

The stern to-morrows call ! 

Well might the youth who saw his coffin'd face, 
Lying in state within the proudest place, 

Long for a lot so high: 
He was the first to leap the treacherous wall; 
First in the arms of Death and Fame to ftiU — 

To live because to die! 
10 113 



HONORS OP WAR 

Pass on, with wails of music, moving slow, 
Thy dark dead-march, O Mother dress'd in woe! 

Lo, many another way 
Shall blacken after, many a sacred head 
Brightly thy stars shall fold, alive though dead, 

From many a funeral day! 

Weep, but grow stronger in thy suffering: 

From their dead brothers' graves thy sons shall bring 

New life of love for thee: 
The long death-marches herald, slow or fast, 
The resurrection-hour of men at last 

New-born in Liberty! 
Washington, May, 1861. 

114 



THE BALLAD OF A KOSE. 

My folded flower last Summer grew 
Sweetly in a glad Southern place; 

Its heart was filled with peaceful dew, 
The peaceful sunshine kiss'd its face. 

Beside the threshold of a cot 
It knew familiar household ties, 

The May's beloved forget-me-noc 

To maiden's lips and children's eyes. 

Bees climb'd about it; birds above 
Sang in the flush'd year of the rose: 

" Our new millennium of Love 
Begins with every May it blows." 

Warm cottage-windows murmur'd near 
All music making home so sweet — 

The mother's voice divinely dear, 

The lisping tongues, the pattering feet. 
115 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

Ah, little rose, another tale 

On your dumb lips has waited long 

(Since then your tender lips grew pale) — 
Speak, darling; make your speech my song! 

Another tale than cottage peace, 
Than balmy quiet, hovering wings 

Of humming-birds and honey-bees. 

And Summer's breath of shining things. 

Ah, little rose, your lips are mute: 
Could Fancy give them words to-day, 

Such histories would but sadly suit 

Those lips that knew but Love and May ! 

You woke, one Sabbath, warm and sweet: 
The fields were bright with dewy glow; 

The sun smiled o'er the springing v*^heat, 
And spake, "Let all things lovelier grow!" 

What answer rock'd the awakeu'd earth. 
Strange echo to that voice divine! 

Before the battle's awful birth 

The earth and heaven gave no sign. 
116 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE, 

The caiiaon thunder'd every-wliere ; 

The bomb sprang howling from af\ir, 
A coming earthquake born in air, 

A winged hell, a bursting star! 

And lo! about the sacred spot 

Where late the doves of home would 'light. 
Men red with battle falter'd not 

Though others lay with faces white. 

The lowly roof of Love, behold ! 

Is rent by shell and cannon-ball ; 
The rifles flame from casements old; 

By bullets torn the roses fall! 

Under the rose-tree where you grew, 
A soldier, dying, look'd and saw 

Your fice, that only Sabbath knew, 
With Nature's love and Heaven's law. 

He heard with ebbing blood and breath, 
At your sweet charm, the thunder cease. 

And in that earthquake-hour of Death 
The cannon jarr'd the bells of Peace. 
117 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

For while lie saw you, tender flower! 

So peaceful in that troubled place, 
A tenderer vision touch'd the hour 

And left its halo on his face. 

A captain pluck'd you, in the roar 
Of battle, o'er his comrade slain, 

And through the fight your beauty bore 
Bloodless upon the bloody plain. 

Dear rose, within your folded leaves 
I know what other memory liesj 

I hear (or else my ear deceives) 
Your wail of homesick longing rise 

" happy Summer, lost to me ! 

threshold, mine to guard no more!" 
You yearn for visits of the bee 

To rose's heart and cottage-door. 

Rest in my book, precious flower ! 

And seem — a whitening face above — 
The witness in the battle hour 

Of Peace and Home, of God and Love ! 
1862. 118 



THE OPEN SLAYE-PEN. 

We start from sleep in morning's buoyant dawn, 
And find the horror which our sleep oppress'd 

A vanish'd darkness, in the daylight gone — 

The nightmare's burthen leaves the stifled breast. 

Yet still a presence moves about the brain, 
Some frightful shadow lost in hazy light. 

And in the noonday highway comes again. 

The loathsome phantom of the breathless night. 

So, while before these hateful doors I stand, 
I feel the burdening darkness which is pass'd, 

Or passing surely from the awaken' d land : 

The nightmare clutches me and holds me fast. 

Back from the years that seem so long ago 
Return the dark processions which have been ; 

Lifting again lost manacles of woe 

They enter here — they vanish, going in. 
119 



THE OPEN SLAVE-PEN. 

Hark to the smother'd murmur of a race 

Within these walls — its helpless wail and moan — 

Which, for the ancient shadow on its fjice, 

Call'd not the morning's new-born light its own ! 

Imprison'd here, what unforgotten cries* 
Of hopeless torture and what sights of woe, 

From cotton-field and rice-plantation rise ! — 

These walls have heard, and seen, and witness show. 

The human drove, the human driver, see ! 

Hark, the dread bloodhound in the swamp at bay ! 
The whipping-post reechoes agony; 

The slave-mart blackens all the shameful day. 

The wife and husband, see, asunder thrust ; 

The mother dragg'd from her far children's wail ; 
The maiden torn from love and given to lust — 

The Human Family in a bill of sale ! 

All sound reecho, all sights reappear : 

(0 blindness, deafness ! that ye can not be !) 

All sounds of woe, that have been heard, I hear ; 
All sights of shame, that have been seen, I see ! 
120 



THJ] OPEN SLAVE-rEN. 

sounds, be still ! visions, leave the day ! — 
What thunder trembled on the sultry air ? 

What lightnings went upon their breathless way ? 
Behold the stricken gates of old despair ! 

The writing on these barbarous walls was plain ; 

The curse has fallen none would understand : 
God's deluge ere another happier rain ; 

His plow of fire before the reaper's land ! 

The awful nightmare slips into its night, 

With cannon-flash and noise of hurrying shell : 

prisons, open for returning light, 

The sun is in the world, and all is well ! 



121 



HIDING TO VOTE. 

THE OLD DEMOCRAT IN THE "WEST. 

Yonder the bleak old Tavern stands — the faded sign 

before, 
That years ago a setting sun and banded harvest 

bore : 
The Tavern stands the same to-day — the sign you 

look upon 
Has glintings of the dazzled sheaves, but nothing of 

the sun. 

In Jackson's days a gay young man, with spirit 

hale and blithe. 
And form like the young hickory, so tough and tall 

and lithe, 
I first remember coming up — we came a wagon-load, 
A dozen for Old Hickory — this rough November 

road. 

122 



RIDING TO VOTE. 

Ah ! forty years — tlicy help a man, you see, in get- 
ting gray; 

They can not take the manly soul, that makes a man, 
away ! 

It's forty years, or near: to-day I go to vote once 
more ; 

Here, half a mile away, we see the crowd about the 
door. 

My boys, in Eighteen Sixty — what! my boys? my 

men, I mean ! 
(No better men nor braver souls in flesh-and-blood 

are seen!) 
One twenty-six, one twenty-three, rode with their 

father then : 
The ballot-box remembers theirs — my vote I '11 try 

again ! 

The ballot-box remembers theirs, the country well 

might know — 
Though in a million only two for little seem to go ; 
But, somehow, when my ticket slipp'd I dream'd of 

Jackson's day: 
The laud, I thought, has need of One whose will will 

find a way! 

123 



RIDING TO VOTE. 

He did not waver when the need had call'd for 
steadfast thought — 

The word he spoke made plain the deed that lay be- 
hind it wrought; " 

And while I mused the Present fell, and, breathing 
back the Past, 

Again it seem'd the hale young man his vote for 
Jackson cast ! 

Thank God it was not lost ! — my vote I did not cast 

in vain ! 
I go alone to drop my vote — the glorious vote again ; 
Alone — where three together fell but one to-day 

shall fall; 
But though I go alone to-day, one voice shall speak 

for all ! 

For when our men, awaking quick, from hearth and 
threshold came, 

Mine did not say, "Another day!" but started like 
a flame ; 

I'll vote for them as well as me; they died as sol- 
diers can, 

But in my vote their voices each shall claim the right 
of man. 

124 



RIDING TO VOTE, 

The elder left his wife and child— my vote for these 

shall tell ; 
The yoimger's sweet-heart has a claim — I '11 vote for 

her as well ! 
Yes ! for the myriad speechless tongues, the myriad 

offer'd lives, 
The desolation at the heart of orplians and of wives ! 

I go to give my vote alone— I curse your shameless 

shame 
Who figlit for traitors here at home in Peace's holy 

name'! 
I o-o to give my vote alone, hut even while I do, 
I vote for dead and living, all— th.e living dead and 

you! 

See yonder tree beside the field, caught in the sud- 
den sough, 

How conscious of its strengtli it leans, how straight 
and steadfast now ! 

If Lincoln bends (for all, througli him, my vote I 
mean to cast) — 

What winds have blown ! what storms he 's known I 
the hickory 's straight at last ! 

November, 1864. 

125 



THE UNBENDED BOW. 

In some old realm, we read, when war had come, 
The bended bow, a warlike sign, was sent 

Across the land — a summoner fierce but dumb ; 
When peace return'd the bow was pass'd unbent. 

Oh, sacred Land ! not many years ago 

(The symbol breathes its meaning evermore), 

Thy holy summons, came the bended bow — 
Thy fiery bearers moved from door to door. 

Then sprang thy brave from threshold and from hearth ; 

Their angry footsteps sounded, moving far. 
As when an earthquake moves across the earth ; 

Shone on thy hill the flame-lit tents of war. 

tender wife, in all thy weakness stern 

With the great purpose which thy husband drew ; 
mother dreaming of thy son's return. 

Strong with the arm whose strength thy country 
knew ; 

126 



THE UNBENDED BOW. 

maiden, proud to hold a hero's name 

Close in thy prayerful silence, blameless : lo, 

Transfigured in the light of love and fame. 
They come, the bearers of the unbended bow ! 

"The strife is hush'd, Land ! " — this voice is plain- 

" The bow of Peace is borne from door to door : 
May thy dread power be never tried again ; 
But let thine arrows shine for evermore." 
1865. 

127 



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